Legislation strengthening Maternal and Perinatal Death Surveillance and Response systems.

Historically, countries have primarily relied on policy rather than legislation to implement Maternal and Perinatal Death Surveillance and Response systems (MPDSR). However, evidence shows significant disparities in how MPDSR is implemented among different countries. In this article, we argue for the importance of establishing MPDSR systems mandated by law and aligned with the country's constitutional provisions, regional and international human rights obligations, and public health commitments.

Using Health Committees to Promote Community Participation as a Social Determinant of the Right to Health: Lessons from Uganda and South Africa.

Community participation is not only a human right in itself but an essential underlying determinant for realizing the right to health, since it enables communities to be active and informed participants in the creation of a responsive health system that serves them efficiently. As acknowledged by the Rio Political Declaration on Social Determinants of Health, participatory processes are important in policymaking and in the implementation of laws relating to health. Collective deliberation improves both community development and health system governance, resulting in more reasoned, informed, and public-oriented decisions.

Reproductive autonomy of women and girls under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Women and girls with disabilities have historically been denied the freedom to make their own choices in matters relating to their reproduction. In the healthcare sector they experience multiple discriminatory practices. Women and girls with intellectual disabilities are particularly vulnerable to coerced or forced medical interventions.

Human rights advances in women's reproductive health in Africa.

The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights recently adopted General Comment No 2 to interpret provisions of Article 14 of the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights Women. The provisions relate to women's rights to fertility control, contraception, family planning, information and education, and abortion. The present article highlights the General Comment's potential to promote women's sexual and reproductive rights in multiple ways.

State obligations to implement African abortion laws: employing human rights in a changing legal landscape.

Women in the African region are overburdened with unsafe abortion. Abortion regimes that fail to translate any given abortion rights into tangible access are partly to blame. Historically, African abortion laws have been highly restrictive.

Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women: implications for access to abortion at the regional level.

Article 14(2)(c) of the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women enjoins States Parties to take appropriate measures "to protect the reproductive rights of women by authorising medical abortion in cases of sexual assault, rape, incest, and where continued pregnancy endangers the mental and physical health of the mother or the life of the mother or the foetus." This paper considers the implications of Article 14 for access to safe, legal abortion. It is submitted that Article 14 has the potential to impact positively on regional abortion law, policy, and practice in 3 main areas.

Access to health care services as a justiciable socio-economic right under the South African constitution.

This commentary describes and analyses the decision of the Constitutional Court of South Africa in Minister of Health and Others v Treatment Action Campaign and Others where the South African government was found to have violated the right of access to health care under the Constitution. Section 27(1) guarantees everyone the right of access to health care services. Section 27(2) imposes on the state a duty to take reasonable measures within its available resources to achieve the progressive realisation of this right.

Substantive equality in South African health care: the limits of law.

The article considers the scope and limits of law as an instrument for facilitating equitable access to health care in South Africa. The focus is on exploring the extent to which the notion of substantive equality in access to health care services that is implicitly guaranteed by the Constitution and supported by current health care reforms, is realisable for patients seeking treatment. The article highlights the gap between the idea of substantive equality in the Constitution and the resources at the disposal of the health care sector and the country as a whole.